Blogging the experience of gameplayhttps://www.gamelog.cl/gamers/GamerPage.php?idgamer=1924https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=6667Today's playthrough of G.A.B.O.S. confirmed what my last gamelog was about. The Mayor and the CEO were bending the rules when it came to sentence time so they could profit off the prison more than they should while the prisoners were unfairly sentenced to longer time served. One of the prisoners ended up shooting the CEO of the prison as the mayor ordered his team to break in and murder the prisoners. I found it interesting that the mayor used such degrading verbage when talking about the prisoners and how terrible of scum they are. The game seems to promote violence to prisoners as the only form of dealing with them. Sometimes I do believe that is the case but considering I was having to order my riot teams to enter a burning building to beat down any survivors seemed like a little bit much in all honesty. I look forward to finishing up the last 2 campaign missions and delving deeper into the game to see what else there is to take from the game!Fri, 30 Mar 2018 00:35:47 CSThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=6667&iddiary=11820https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=6667Today I didn't have as much time to play as yesterday so I explored the systems further by looking at how to make a jail with more tools than I used before. One of the biggest mechanics in the game is that of money. When a prisoner is held at your prison you receive money (from taxpayers I'm assuming) with harder criminals gaining the prison more money. I found this mechanic problematic when thinking of ethical concerns this game might bring. By making the prisons a for profit organization, the needs of prisoners tend to get neglected because you skim out on the little things to make a gain in the bottom line. I'm interested to see if this ethical dilemma is brought up further into the campaign narrative.Wed, 28 Mar 2018 23:56:09 CSThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=6667&iddiary=11791https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=6667I played through the first 2 campaign missions which both seemed to serve as a tutorial of sorts. The 2nd mission with the Palermo's seemed to be the more memorable of the 2 but I liked how both missions incorporated the narrative between the prisons. I was frustrated a couple of times when it came to the optional objectives and had to google how to run drug and alcohol programs by creating a schedule for my inmates. I started to become annoyed with the lack of space given and the inmates feeling certain ways when I was working really hard to better their situation and I felt very unappreciated if I'm being honest! The game really reminds me of zoo tycoon as a kid except for instead of placing animals in cages, I'm placing bad people in them. I'm still trying to work out a clear moral dilemma with the game but as I move forward we will see how that issue clears up!Wed, 28 Mar 2018 00:01:30 CSThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=6667&iddiary=11760https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=6605TestFri, 23 Feb 2018 11:53:00 CSThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=6605&iddiary=11715https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=6605I played another couple hours today and primarily focused on helping a lowly orc named Ratbag rise through the ranks by setting up and killing the captains above him. I've come to like him and hope that it doesn't set me up to kill him later on. I still haven't come across the power to turn the Urux against each other but Ratbag will do for now. I've been leveling up my attributes nicely to my play-style and the game is getting better the more I'm becoming comfortable with the mechanics. Orcs and Urux are a nasty bunch of creatures but the ethical choices Ratbag willingly uses is questionable. We talked about Kantianism in class today and he 100 percent goes against his way of thinking by lying through his teeth and setting up other captains to be killed as they're just means to his end. I'm definitely going to continue playing this game to the end and maybe it will prompt me to play the newly released Shadow of War.Fri, 16 Feb 2018 00:22:50 CSThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=6605&iddiary=11695https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=6605I played for Shadow of Mordor for another hour and a half today and while I advanced the storyline a little, I was continuing on learning the mechanics of the game. I'm a bit of a completionist when it comes to games and when I saw Shadow of Mordor was an option to play for this class, I was really excited since I had purchased this game a couple of years ago and had never been able to get to it. After running through a captain that had a slave who had information on the "Black Hand of Sauron," I came across Gollum and found out he had some information on the Elvish Wraith I had come into contact with in the purgatory like place I was trapped in after I was murdered. During the missions, I noticed there were “Bonus side missions” within the missions that if completed would give more experience points or currency to level up with tasks such as “free the slaves without being detected” or “kill the captain’s minions before the captain.” After I completed these missions I noticed in the map screen there was an option to complete tasks for survival or combat with tasks such as “Kill 3 spiders” or “collect 3 plants” which upon completion rewarded me with more experience points and currency. I’m currently having trouble relating this to the class as far as ethics go but as far as I can tell, the ethical decisions that seem to be a part of the gameplay would have to do with the Nemesis system. I read that when a perk is unlocked later in the game, you can force the captains to bend to your will and turn on their own kind. The ethical question raised would be whether or not it’s acceptable to turn an enemy on their own. To think I myself could be forced to kill my own family through manipulation is horrifying and wouldn’t wish that upon my worst enemy. I’m going to play further into the game to see if I can get a better understanding of this mechanic. (This entry has been edited1 time. It was last edited on Wed, 14 Feb 2018 18:08:38.)Wed, 14 Feb 2018 18:04:50 CSThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=6605&iddiary=11647https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=6605I played roughly an hour and a half of Shadow of Mordor and I can say that after a slow start, the interest is there! I didn't advance the story line due to learning how the game works and picking fights here and there. The mechanics seem to be very deep and I'll continue to have that learning curve throughout the game which I imagine will continually gets easier to pick up. I found that this area of the world is absolutely filled with Orcs and baddies everywhere and by picking fights with just one or two minions you can soon be enveloped by 10-20 within seconds along with captains that may or may not be head and shoulders above you power-wise.The game has really interesting mechanics. I learned that captains can really destroy you within only a couple hits and when they do, they level up off you just like you would by killing them. The game also puts an emphasis on the fact that you really cant die. When you're defeated in battle, you just spawn back at the closest tower and continue on your mission but now have a "revenge" kill option which allows you to hunt down the last baddie who defeated you in battle. The narrative supports this no death mechanic by listening in on orcs who openly talk about how you can't be killed, you "only come back stronger." I'm excited to get back to this and continue on to the main story line to really see the narrative of the game develop more.Tue, 13 Feb 2018 23:09:21 CSThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=6605&iddiary=11628https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=6540Firewatch Log #3 I made it through day 77 of my firewatch and wow! Things have picked up and they are going in a direction I didn’t expect while semi-debunking my original theory that everything is all in my head while I’m slowly going crazy. The 2 girls that went missing earlier on in the game and the random man I saw by my tower seem to be connected to a weird group of individuals at Wapiti Station. Delilah helped me get a new radio so we could avoid having our conversations listened in on and formed a plan to break into their station. Once I broke into their station, it seemed as if no one was there. I found logs containing my (Henry’s) choices and personality traits along with Delilah’s and 2 others information which I’m thinking are the 2 girls that went missing. Ethically, it’s interesting that the game seems to keep track of your dialogue choices with Delilah and your actions throughout the game to allow the station and people to formulate a decision on you. The logs seemed eerily close to what I had portrayed myself to be in the game and as a side note, when I was leaving the camp, Delilah offers the thought to burn the whole place down. I denied her request but then someone decided to burn it down anyways. I felt like this was a way to steer the story down a certain way regardless of my decision but I think it will still have an impact somewhere down the line in this game. I’m glad the game made the narrative decisions it did because I would have been bored with the conclusions I had drawn so far. Ben Blackburn (This entry has been edited1 time. It was last edited on Thu, 18 Jan 2018 21:29:40.)Thu, 18 Jan 2018 21:21:51 CSThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=6540&iddiary=11555https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=6540Firewatch Log #2 I made it through day 9 and something eerie is going on. I'm not quite sure if this is a mental issue or real but it seems to be pretty intense. The world is pretty big so I'm getting a lot of exploring in and the conversations I'm having with Delilah are both lighthearted and deep as well. Delilah seems to be hiding something so I’m excited to get to know her and her secrets and possibly meet her as well unless she’s just a figment of my imagination in some crazy plot twist! The ethical intertwining seems to still be the narrative mostly and it is building up to something that will be a decent climax from what I can tell. I’m hoping I can get to it here soon! Ben Blackburn (This entry has been edited3 times. It was last edited on Wed, 17 Jan 2018 18:51:35.)Wed, 17 Jan 2018 18:30:19 CSThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=6540&iddiary=11499https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=6540The narrative of Firewatch begins by having you make ethical decisions such as taking care of your sick wife or putting her in a 24 hour care facility. Upon reaching the lookout tower, I was introduced to Delilah, the supervisor of the firewatch. While talking with Delilah over the radio, the game too gives choices to drive the conversation in a certain way. I had to find the culprits of some fireworks in the area and traced them to a couple girls skinny dipping in the lake which then gave me the option of handling it in a few different ways. I tried to be nice to them but they were still rude unfortunately. When looking at how Firewatch intersects with ethics, I thought of the forced point of view we went over in class. The game seems to really focus on making me feel as if I’m the main character Henry. The conversations and decisions I make are decisions that feel as if they have weight to them and are mine alone to make. With my in game wife Julia being sick and being forced to make the decision of her care, I really felt troubled and thought of what I myself would do if my wife was put in the same situation. Due to real life scenarios with my own family and sickness, it gave me the “pit at the bottom of my stomach” feeling and I could see how others could be triggered emotionally by the weight and tone of this game. (This entry has been edited2 times. It was last edited on Tue, 16 Jan 2018 20:12:12.)Tue, 16 Jan 2018 20:08:38 CSThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=6540&iddiary=11461